Tone Research In Monosyllabic Words Of Putonghua For Severe Hearing-impaired Children

The main purpose of this study was to understand tonal characteristics of hearing-impaired children based on perceptual analysis and acoustic analysis. Qualitative research and quantitative research methods were both used in this study. Four Chinese teachers for hearing-impaired children in Shanghai area were invited to take part in the research project, and data via semi-structural intensive interviews for summarization and analysis was gathered. Three research questions were conducted to investigate tonal characteristics of hearing-impaired children. Eight severe hearing loss children with hearing aids and four normal hearing children were surveyed. The subjects were given eight monosyllabic words of Putonghua. All data was collected by custom-developed software and analyzed by Praat.The results showed that there were significant differences between hearing-impaired children and normal hearing children. The results also showed that there were significant differences among their performance in four tone type for hearing-impaired children. Of the four tones, high rising tone was the most difficult tone for the hearing-impaired children to produce. Error patterns of level tone substitution and high rising tone distortion were most frequent. In addition, the results indicated that no particular relation between age and tonal production in hearing-impaired children could be observed. Also tonal production of hearing-impaired children was not improved by age. Hearing-impaired children took a longer course in acquiring tones and their FO contours were different from that of the normal hearing children. Finally, the results of the analysis lead to suggestions for tonal instruction teachers, that they should pay more attention to improving tonal production of hearing-impaired children by using effective methods.